Rogue Columnist

It's a scandal

2013-05-18T15:10:09-07:00

It's a scandal. It's an outrage.
On our manhood it's a blot!
Where is the leader who will save us
And be the first man to be shot?
— Rodgers and Hammerstein

The "scandals" of the past week — Benghazi and the IRS — have two purposes: To destroy Hillary Clinton, the presumptive/feared Democratic nominee in 2016 and "to break him," as the secesh former South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint said of President Obama on another issue. Whether the tempests can rise out of their right-wing teapot remains to be seen. Ruining Hillary and seeking to impeach Mr. Obama will be the Republican enterprise for the next three-and-a-half years. It's a tired playbook, but it keeps working for the right.

Little of what the right claims about Benghazi is correct. And, as Rogue's Front Page Editor tells me (and he's a man who knows about such things), the truth will never be known because the CIA will never come clean about its part in the mess. It is interesting that we've been spending more on the military than during the Cold War and yet we couldn't get help to the consulate/CIA safe house during the attack. I know there's a Marine FAST unit (Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team) based right across the Med in Rota, Spain. FAST is specifically designed for these crises. Why has the press never raised the question about why it was not mobilized? The narrative has it that the nearest help was in the Balkans. But I don't blame Hillary for this tragedy. John Boehner's House ensured that funds for State Department security was cut back.

As for the IRS "scandal," this is a direct outgrowth of Citizens United and the huge influx of corporate and plutocrat money into the electoral process. Why the 501(c)4 tax break for these powerful and shadowy organizations was ever created is scandalous, not that they were given some scrutiny by the IRS. The Tea Party was always doing the work of its hidden puppet-masters, no matter what the old white people dressed up in colonial garb and ignorant of American history thought.

The Obama administration's filching source material from the Associated Press is shameful and dangerous, but only the latest sign of our slide under President George W. Bush and Mr. Obama, abetted by Congress, to shred the Constitution in the name of Das Homeland Security. To paraphrase Churchill, we have given up our liberties to obtain safety and now we shall have neither. This is a scandal but don't look for Darrell Issa to become a profile in courage. The "lamestream media," as Sarah Palin, perhaps the future governor of Arizona, calls it necessarily has a "left-wing bias" because the facts do, too. Which doesn't keep the media from scandalous malpractice in its attempts for "balance" and false equivalency — "both sides do it"; the "left" is as loud, well-funded and extreme as the right, etc. The center of our discourse has moved so far to the right over the past 20 years that Dwight Eisenhower would be considered in the same camp as Noam Chomsky.

Let's not burn books, as the right would seek (or just making reading into a hoity toity smarty pants liberal thing as opposed to authentic real 'Mericans). Let's be more careful about words and phrases. "Great Recession," for example. I'm so sorry I ever hopped on that train. For one thing, it trivializes the Great Depression. More important, it is imprecise about the nature of what actually happened, and how it will happen again, probably worse, and we'll be out of "Greats." I prefer the Panic of 2008. In financialized Randian quiet coup America, better to return to 19th century language when referring to the consequences of robber barons run amok. Coming up: The Panic of 2015. The same is true of "gridlock." As if our political status is an accident and people just need to get along. It implies paralysis. We are indeed polarized, perhaps more so than anytime since 1860. But the Republicans are not paralyzed. From taking hostages over the budget and holding up even minor presidential nominees to preparing for the next impeachment, they are playing a dynamic role. It's toxic, to be sure. Nominees were once routinely approved. The debt ceiling was increased as a matter of course. Without compromise, American democracy can't function in a healthy way. But paralyzed? No. The Republicans, the representatives of the New Confederacy, are getting exactly what they want. It's a scandal.

It's a scandal that we have passed the ominous 400 ppm level of carbon dioxide and the United States is doing nothing to slow, much less reverse, the rate of climate change. No, we are drilling, baby...to ensure (as they say on Battlestar Galactica) that the planet is fracked. And Serious People have the brass to lecture us on austerity so we don't leave a debt burden to future generations. Instead, we will leave them a planet our of a science fiction nightmare. Hey, science is fiction, because it has a left-wing bias and Creationism must be taught.

It's a scandal that endless war and empire are the policies that have propulsive force in America. Republican, Democrat, endless war. Another is ongoing financialization, setting up the next bust with bubbles and gambling and the playerz get away with it. People sigh. Oh, well, business as usual. USA USA! The terrorists hate us because of our values.

It's a scandal that historic inequality, loss of economic mobility, wage stagnation, the hollowing out of American industry (sorry, no manufacturing renaissance), shocking levels of unemployment, 1970s infrastructure and poverty are not being addressed. If you were just willing to put in an honest day's work, you'd get ahead, you welfare queen loser. We've got to tighten our belts, as long as it means federal spending on such things as schools, research, Amtrak and transit, not going after the trillion-dollar tax dodgers.

The real scandals listed above involve classic corruption, deceit, damage to the public good, destruction of fair play and scummy bag men/women, even if they dine at the most exclusive restaurants in D.C. The Koch brothers, Big Oil, Big Coal, Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Blankfein "doing God's work," Tim Geithner, tech billionaires lending their hubris and money to the charter schools racket while offshoring work and pushing for more H-1B visas, the revolving door between Wall Street and the lapdog regulators, the Military Industrial Complex, the usual suspects.

But on these there will be no hearings, no cries for accountability. The people who should be broken will keep doing the breaking, of America's future. And the residents of Moronistan will sleepwalk into the next crisis, then cry, "How could we have known?"

Reinventing Hance Park

2013-05-14T11:10:48-07:00

I'm in Phoenix this week for my new novel, The Night Detectives (you can find a schedule of signings on my author Web site). One remarkable thing is how the conversations I have with friends never really change much when it comes to the topic of Phoenix and Arizona. Searching for something new...an effort is under way to produce a "new master plan" for Margaret Hance Park.

The site irritates me at the outset by claiming Hance Park is located "in the heart of down downtown Phoenix," whatever that means. It is in Midtown, a deck sitting atop the Papago Freeway from Third Street to Third Avenue. All together now: Downtown runs from the railroad tracks to Fillmore and from Seventh Avenue to Seventh Street. One could be very liberal and extend it to Roosevelt — no farther. You outlanders would be offended if I said the Loop in Chicago extended to Winnetka; you don't get to rewrite the geography of my hometown.

In any event, the deck park was the compromise when Interstate 10 was rammed through the heart of Phoenix, resulting in the demolition of 3,000 houses, many of them irreplaceable historic homes, as well as the shady Moreland Parkway. Originally, the Wilbur Smith plan called for the freeway to soar 100 feet over Central Avenue and traffic to exit by "helicoils" winding down to Third Avenue and Third Street. So things could have been much worse

An April letter concerning the 32-acre park called it "a compelling site for a new vision" with its central location, light rail station (WBIYB) and closeness to the central library, museums and other attractions. It continues, "Through history, from Barcelona, Paris, London and Mexico City to the parks of the late 19th century work of American Fredrick Olmstead (sic), to the 21st century landmark parks of Chicago's Millennium Park and New York's High Line, parks have defined cities. Great cities have great parks, and great parks make great cities! It is Phoenix's time."

Past time, really. Back in the late 1990s, Phoenix had big hopes for Steele Indian School Park, which was hyped as "a new Central Park." Today, it's a pitiful expanse of sun-blasted grass and concrete, with private interests holding the empty land that boxes it in on Central and Indian School. The whole deal is suspicious — oh for a press curious about something other than those horrid public employees with their communist pensions. Why the federal government didn't simply hand the entire parcel over to the city for a dollar when it closed the Phoenix Indian School only makes the tragedy seem more like a real-estate hustle gone bad.

To be sure, Phoenix lives off the legacy of previous stewards who created Encanto Park, South Mountain Park and Papago Park. These are always at risk, as when scores of old trees were lost to a storm at Encanto (did the city plant new ones?). As for Hance Park, it could have been worse. At least the city didn't throw down the densely packed rocks that have become its signature "landscaping." The future is challenging because of tight city budgets — Your Tax Cuts at Work — a City Council that is indifferent-to-hostile concerning the central core, and lack of wealthy stewards of the kind that bankrolled Chicago's Millennium Park.

If I were a billionaire, I would lean on ADOT to extend the park all the way to Seventh Street and Seventh Avenue. One can dream.

Three goals are within reach.

First, the park needs an abundance of shade trees, as well as keeping the grass it has. This is the oasis part of the city, so going desert is ahistorical and a great way to drive people away. Its model should be Encanto Park. The Arizona ash, acacia, mesquite and cottonwood are all fairly drought-tolerant. But remember, this is the soil of the Salt River Valley. Anything grows here provided it has water. Ficus trees are great, too. Investing water to create an oasis of shade trees in the heart of the city is far better than using it for another housing racket out on the fringes. Shade is essential.

Second, the park requires a visible, 24/7 police or park ranger presence. The white-right apartheid suburbs like Phoenix as a dumping ground for the homeless, the hardcore street people and petty crime. It shouldn't intrude in the park. Also, Phoenicians don't have urban sensibilities, so the appearance of safety will be important in getting them to patronize the park.

Third, rename it. Margaret Hance left a complicated legacy as mayor of Phoenix and she still has plenty of friends. She grew up in what is now Willo and attended Kenilworth School (as did Barry Goldwater, Paul Fannin and Homey). But as mayor Hance was no friend of the central city. Indeed, she presided over the death of downtown and unconscionable damage to the central city. Name a road after her in Arcadia, but not this park.

Others will have plenty of good ideas. Do study best practices elsewhere, especially the park designs of Frederick Law Olmsted. Remember Daniel Burnham: "Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work." I hope they go somewhere. But don't forget the essentials: Shade and grass; visible safety, and a name that honors a true central city steward.

On National Train Day

2013-05-10T15:01:12-07:00

Saturday is National Train Day with events scheduled in all 50 states, including in Seattle at the beautifully restored King Street Station (above). I was a guest on this topic today on KUOW's The Conversation With Ross Reynolds, but time being what it is, much more needs to be said. Some of this may be familiar to Rogue readers, but it can't be stated often enough.

1. Seattle is better served by passenger rail than most American cities. It is the terminus of two long-distance Amtrak trains, the Coast Starlight and the Empire Builder. I've ridden both and they are the best way to see the country. In addition, it is served by the Amtrak Cascades, a regional corridor with multiple trains a day south to Portland and Eugene and north to Vancouver, B.C. You can enjoy a relaxing, spacious ride alongside spectacular scenery, have a meal or adult beverage, and work using onboard wi-fi. Sound Transit operates commuter rail via its Sounder service north and south in the metropolitan area. Finally, Seattle has both light rail and one streetcar line with more to come. Phoenix is by far the largest American city with no passenger rail service at all (although it has — WBIYB — light rail).

2. Passenger rail is the most environmentally friendly way to move large numbers of people, an advantage that matters even more if we're going to reduce greenhouse gases associated with climate change. Cars are terrible polluters, but so are airplanes. Trains also help ease congestion on highways and airline routes, as well as reducing the safety costs associated with cars and freeways. Commuter rail helps ease the horrible traffic of rush hours that impedes productivity, belches pollution and causes costly wrecks.

3. With a nation of 315 million people, most in large urban areas, rail is an essential part of a multi-modal transportation system. One sweet spot is train service between city pairs. In Europe, this has been so successful that it has in some cases taken over from airlines, freeing planes to fly other routes, cutting emissions and reducing the wait times that fliers must endure. In the United States, the Cascades are one popular example of a relatively short-haul corridor. Others include Santa-Barbara-LA-San Diego (above); the Bay Area and Capitol Corridor in California; St. Louis-Chicago; Chicago-Detroit and Raleigh-Charlotte. All receive state funding. Then there's the busy Northeast Corridor, which has now been extended south to Richmond. It's astounding that there's no Phoenix-Tucson or Phoenix-LA service.

The Turbo Train at Phoenix Union Station in 1972. It was a futuristic technology but never received support and was relegated to use in the Northeast.

4. Amtrak keeps setting ridership records, including on its supposed "money losing" long-distance trains. These are essential to a national network, and they are also the lifeblood of many smaller communities. Thus, a train such as the Texas Eagle gets strong support in its otherwise reactionary namesake state. In addition, these trains are a truly wonderful way to travel. If you've never done it, take a train trip.

5. Given all these positives, why does Amtrak struggle for funding every year? It comes down to the reflexive Republican hatred of passenger trains, and the GOP controls the House. I've written more about this anti-rail fetish and its consequences here. Amtrak isn't the only way to go (for my historical look, see here). It's unfortunate that the Congress didn't simply provide subsidies to private railroads for passenger trains, and do so on competitive routes. Successful privatization and public-private models are working in other countries. Even the conservative/austerian Cameron government in Great Britain is embarking on an ambitious expansion of rail service, including building true high-speed rail. But however you do it, passenger service needs a dedicated funding stream that's not hostage to each year's budget battle.

6. So you mean subsidies? Yes. Much more of American economic life is subsidized than most people realize. Deposit insurance is one subsidy for banking. Our military "subsidizes" relatively cheap oil and the 10,000-mile supply chain so we can get cheap clothes made in Bangladesh. No transportation system is unsubsidized. Freeways aren't free and drivers don't pay their way. As the emergency sessions of Congress to fund the FAA — just to avoid flight delays — show some of the many subsidies to the airline industry. Freeways, roads and airplanes also have huge costs as externalities, real but not counted in conventional assessments. Only Amtrak is supposed to pay its way. This mindset keeps us stuck in a dysfunctional 1970s transportation system. A study of the German rail system showed that the subsidies paid actually repaid the nation when such externalities as the pollution and car wrecks avoided were priced in.

7. So should we have high-speed rail? Yes. We spend hours alone in our cars and think we're an advanced nation. In fact, we're way behind. Japan, Germany, France, Spain, the nordic countries and many more provide examples of 21st century transportation systems, of which high-speed rail is an essential part. Building, maintaining and operating them also provide jobs. Americans don't realize this because most of us don't get out in the world. If California ever builds true high-speed rail (going 155-miles-per-hour or more), that may change. Like light rail, once people try it, they love it. But we should also be rebuilding and adding frequency on the conventional rail network. As late as the 1950s, it was the finest in the world.

Happy National Train Day.

Rogue open thread

2013-05-09T12:59:13-07:00

Conversation starters:

Keystone XL's John Kerry connections.

The Census data that should terrify Republicans (at least for presidential elections).

What Darrell Issa really wants out of the Benghazi hearings.

Meet the McCain Institute.

The Renzi political corruption trial starts.

Freeway to hell II

2013-05-06T14:15:38-07:00

I thought my 2010 post on the proposed South Mountain Freeway was all that needed to be said, not that it would stop this abomination. But the great thing about Phoenix is how it continues to inspire new material.

Thus, the newly released "environmental impact statement" on the $2 billion project claims that if it isn't built Phoenix's air will grow worse. I am not making this up. Here's the "logic" behind the claim: “In some instances, impacts under the No-Action Alternative would be greater than those that would occur under the action alternatives. As a specific example, energy use — in terms of annual fuel consumption — would be greater.” The Arizona Republic's Sean Holstege writes, "It is a key finding, because many freeway opponents have argued that building nothing, the only available planning alternative, would be better for the environment. All the environmental consequences are typical of freeway projects and can be mitigated, the report found."

First, a little background. Building new freeways is essential to perpetuating the sprawl hustle of the Real Estate Industrial Complex. Without them, empty land on the fringes would be worth much less and be more valuable for agriculture or even as empty desert. It's an old racket, with the added benefit being that the cost, through sales taxes, falls most heavily on the working poor.

But claiming that the South Mountain Freeway is the green alternative is a new height of chutzpah. Or, as President Clinton would put it, that takes some brass.

Here's what the report doesn't model: What if the money were instead put into commuter rail serving the suburbs southwest and southeast of Phoenix? Such an endeavor would take thousands of cars off existing freeways, helping ease congestion and improve air quality. It's not as if suburbanites don't want it. When I participated in a Buckeye futurist event in the mid-2000s, a survey of residents there found their No. 1 desire to be a commuter rail link to downtown. The rails and right-of-way are already in place.

Nor did it take account one huge positive effect of doing nothing: Encouraging more density and reinvestment in Phoenix's existing urban footprint. If the commute was hellish and getting worse, "consumers" would be less prone to buy houses on the fringes. Central Phoenix has plenty of empty and underutilized land that could become high-quality dense residential neighborhoods. Add more convenient and frequent transit and the air gets better.

Meanwhile, going all the way back to Robert Moses, we know that new roads and freeways are congestion generators. So it defies experience to believe that another eight-lane freeway will make anything better. For example, by creating more sprawl in areas the new route touches outside of the Gila River Indian Reservation, the South Mountain Freeway will draw more traffic, offsetting any dream that it will be a reliever of the Papago Freeway. Without commuter rail or transit, people living in these areas have no practical choice but to make single-occupancy car trips. When gasoline gets prohibitively expensive, as it will, the air and congestion problems will be solved, after a fashion, but $2 billion will have been pissed away on infrastructure suited to the 1970s. Even Los Angeles has abandoned freeway building in favor of an extensive network of light rail and commuter trains.

Finally, the supposed environmental impact statement makes no mention of the externalities, the hidden costs. These run a gamut from lost desert and farmland to further decentralization of employment, increasing the reach of the heat island and pumping more Phoenix smog into the Gila River basin while actually doing nothing to improve the horribly unhealthy air in the Salt River Valley proper. Only passing reference is made to the desecration of the South Mountains. I could find no mention of the project in connection with climate change's dangerous future in central Arizona. Add in the externalities and the cost is far greater than $2 billion.

Phoenix needs more freeways about as much as it needs another real-estate boom (with championship golf! — which fewer and fewer people are playing, by the way).

If the South Mountain Freeway make so little sense, why build it? Partly, custom and habit. Phoenix is like a drunk desperately searching his apartment for another hidden bottle. But mostly the preponderance of power in the metropolitan area will reap short-term profits by moving ahead with a project that will wring the region's neck for decades. House building, road construction moguls, "rock products," office "park" developers — the usual suspects will benefit from the last great extraction industry. Individual players, many well connected, will make a tidy sum to sock away while they live in the San Juans or San Diego and who gives a rat's ass about Phoenix. It is a feedback loop that is killing Phoenix's future.

Tell me again, who hates Arizona?

Rogue open thread

2013-05-02T11:00:03-07:00

My author Web site is now updated with reviews and signing dates and times for my new mystery, The Night Detectives.

Meanwhile: Conversation starters (feel free to add your own):

• China is plundering the planet's seas.

• Sandra Day O'Connor's second thoughts on Bush v. Gore and her tarnished legacy.

• A pretty good takedown of suburban apologist Joel Kotkin.

• Rah! Rah! Rah! Arizona ranks near the bottom in jobs per capita.

• The Gitmo hunger strike. USA! USA!

• National Review tries to rehabilitate Barry Goldwater on racial justice.

The 'Goldwater' Institute

2013-04-29T08:00:00-07:00

When Hillary Clinton lashed out in 1998 at "the vast right-wing conspiracy," most people laughed. I certainly did. Then I returned to Phoenix two years later to see how correct she was. Exhibit A was the "Goldwater" Institute, motto: "Where freedom wins." Before he died, Barry wanted his name removed from the organization, but he backed off because it was dear to his brother. So I have always referred to it with Goldwater in quotes or as the Bob Goldwater Institute. Either way, it has played a pivotal role in damaging Arizona and holding back progress.

After its founding in 1988, local media accorded the institute respect as a "think tank." Robert Robb, a political operative who came out of the "Goldwater" Institute, was hired as an editorial columnist for the Arizona Republic. After the departure of Ricardo Pimentel and me, he became the only real editorial columnist after the 2007 newsroom organization. Unlike most entrusted with a position of such influence, Robb did not spend 20 years gaining experience and accolades as a journalist for a major newspaper. He was always a member of "the vast right-wing conspiracy." And the institute itself was regularly quoted in news stories as an authority on virtually every issue.

The trouble is that the "Goldwater" Institute is not a think tank as conventionally understood, an organization where scholars pursue research with open minds and produce material that is vigorously peer reviewed (think The Brookings Institution). Instead, it is an advocacy organization such as the NRA or the Sierra Club. It is rarely identified as such in the media — unless I am writing about it, which I try to avoid, aside from one takedown in the early 2000s.

The institute first tried to get my mind right, sending emissaries to meet me over lunch and coffee. I was invited to soirees at its Midtown headquarters, an ironic location considering its anti-city bias. When this failed, it made me a regular target of attacks on its Web site and its publications as a tax-and-spend liberal enemy of freedom, as well as pressuring the Republic to silence or fire me (it joined a long line). My sins included pointing out that Arizona's tax revenues were inadequate to the needs of a populous, highly urbanized state; that the "conservative" policies followed through the previous decade had left the economy narrow and uncompetitive outside of housing; that they had ensured the state would be on or near the top of every measure of social and environmental ills, and my support of such public projects as T-Gen, the Phoenix Convention Center and light rail (WBIYB). I was the one voice demonstrating how these policies had utterly failed. I remember early in the 2000s, a source told me of a high-level meeting of economic-development leaders and other officials looked at the data and one exclaimed, "My god, Talton is right."

The "Goldwater" Institute is unwilling to approach any issue with an open mind, assessing the most trusted data and evidence, looking at the situation on the ground and reaching conclusions. Instead, it starts with the conclusions — basically, government and taxes are always bad, charter-schools racket and privatization hustles good — and cherry picks evidence and arguments to support it. Still, as stated above, this has been treated with great respect by the media. ASU's Morrison Institute for Public Policy, which was a real think tank, is considered the "liberal" alternative to "Goldwater," even though Morrison doesn't use the same modus operandi and its only dogma is to avoid antagonizing the Real Estate Industrial Complex, hence cheerleading for the "Sun Corridor" (the reader should know that I had a one-year fellowship at Morrison).

Back when I was considered by some a conservative commentator, I had friends at the Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute, both of which do have some able people and at least a veneer of conventional scholarship. They laughed indulgently about the "Goldwater" Institute, considered it bush league. It took me awhile to realize that the institute was not really about intellectual inquiry, even from a stunted, one-sided approach. It was just a cog in a national machinery.

"Goldwater's" conclusions and talking points bear a close resemblance to those of think tanks seeded in virtually every state in the 1980s and 1990s by "conservative" money. They are intended to look like grassroots local organizations. In fact, they are part of the — let's put on a more precise definition — vast right-wing infrastructure. Together with Fox "News," talk radio and organizations such as ALEC, they turned formerly competitive states red, red states more extreme and even hold great power in many supposedly blue states. ALEC, you will recall, writes reactionary corporatist legislation to be passed, as is, in states throughout America — it was especially effective in Wisconsin, but the template is applied nationwide.

Who is really behind the "Goldwater Institute"? It has worked hard to keep its backing secretive. Yet the Center for Media and Democracy recently published a helpful Reporter's Guide to the Goldwater Institute. Shamrock Farms and Norman McClelland, its CEO, give a good deal (make your shopping choices accordingly). But out-of-state donors are instructive; they include the Koch brothers and the Walton Family Foundation with its Wal-Mart heir money. Another biggie is the Donors Capital Fund, which gives big money to these right-wing pods nationwide and is a major player in climate-change denial propaganda. So much for the claim that the institute is funded only by individual donations. Every Arizonan should read this exemplary piece of investigation.

Allied with this money and ALEC, the institute has exerted tremendous influence in the Legislature. It has been at the forefront of holding back funding for education and gutting the public schools to use taxpayer money for the charter-schools racket. It has carried on a vendetta against cities — local power is only good for "freedom" when it in the hands of reactionary Republicans. Thus, it was instrumental is getting highly restrictive bills on use of eminent domain and other measures passed, which would likely preclude cities from using tax-increment financing to help their downtowns or to compete in providing economic-development incentives. It is working to gut sales taxing power by cities. Measures to protect workers or respond to climate change are affronts to "economic freedom." The institute can thus claim credit for perpetuating and exacerbating virtually every problem in the state.

A few years ago, the "Goldwater" Institute came out of the closet and began filing lawsuits to further its dogma and do the bidding of the plutocrats. Any project of state or civic betterment faces the possibility of being hauled into court by the institute. I admit we were on the same side in opposing the CityNorth fiasco. But in general, the institute's efforts are nearly always reactionary and the chilling effect is real. And nevermind that Arizona is a creation of activist government, a net taker state, and Barry supported every bond issue ever done by the city of Phoenix. The institute retains the strange respect accorded by the media. If anything its power keeps growing, despite the failure of every right-wing policy. "Liberals" or even reality minded people have nothing to match it.

The "Goldwater" Institution did overreach recently in threatening to sue Gilbert over a city recreation center it claimed was competing against private-sector health clubs. Yes, you dupes, city parks, recreation centers, libraries and especially "government schools" have us well along on the road to serfdom. Gilbert has Mormons and other influential white people to push back.

The rest of Arizona will keep paying the price of "freedom."

Read more about the (mostly fixable) mess in the Grand Canyon State in Rogue's Arizona's Continuing Crisis.

Rogue open thread

2013-04-24T18:19:37-07:00

Conversation starters (feel free to add your own):

Nice to see ASU moving baseball to give new life to Phoenix Muni, after spring training all but abandoned the city, also good that the Sun Devils will play at Chase Field rather than send hundreds of buses to Glendale (Ariz.) and play at the cotton field (University of Phoenix Stadium). Light rail pays off (WBIYB).

Nearly half of New York City residents live at or near poverty — and the city measures. I'd love to see a comparable census for the city of Phoenix.

Almost anything Clyde Prestowitz writes is top-notch. Here he departs from his trade expertise, but his Japan/Asia expertise is on full display.

Tucson is giving its city employees a 55-cent raise, and grudgingly. Amid all the hate directed at government workers, it's interesting to note that nobody in Boston was begrudging their unionized public employees after the marathon bombing.

Days after the explosion in West, Texas, Gov. Rick Perry was trying to lure business by boasting about the state's weak regulations. A model for Brewer?

Jeff Flake was caught in his background check double-talk. Even wealthy Republican Sen. John Sidney McCain III voted for them, but not Flake, R-NRA. And here's an interesting question: Why does America lose its head over "terror" while ignoring its daily gun deaths? Here's a running tally since Newtown.